LETTERS FROM CAMP: An interview with Camp writer/director Todd Graff. By Warren Curry 7/23/03

Todd Graff (far right) with the cast of Camp.

(Read the review of Camp)

A successful actor (probably most known for his role in The Abyss) and established screenwriter (Angie, Dangerous Minds), Todd Graff traveled a familiar path when making his directorial debut: he turned to material from his own personal history. "I went to the real camp and it's an amazing place," comments Graff about his experience as a teenager attending upstate New York's Stagedoor Manor, a summer camp for performing arts aspirants. In Graff's film, concisely and appropriately entitled Camp, the director re-imagines Stagedoor Manor as the fictional Camp Ovation, where every summer a group of high school outcasts convene to exercise their artistic muscles, and also find acceptance amongst their peers. "I like the idea that maybe there will be one movie out there for the kid who is the kid I was when I was 15," says Graff, who attended Stagedoor Manor with Jennifer Jason Leigh and was an 8-year-old Robert Downey Jr.'s camp counselor. "Kids (from the ages of) 12 to17 that are not the kids who beat up the characters in our movie, but are the characters in our movie."

To call Camp a labor of love for Graff would be a monumental understatement. It took nearly 5 years from the time an initial draft of the script was completed until production finally commenced in the summer of 2002. Through it all, Graff resisted every temptation to alter his script in order to appease potential financial backers. So just what changes were being suggested? How about, for one, exchanging his gay characters for Trekkies. "That kind of thing is what I was up against," he sighs. "It was what I wanted to direct for the first film I directed. It's not like over these 4 ½ years of trying to raise the money, I sought other directing opportunities. If this was going to be the one, I really had to make sure it was the way I meant it to be."

The film that Graff obviously references in Camp is Alan Parker's Fame, and this observation is nothing the director shies away from. "I embrace that comparison. When I couldn't figure out the ending, I watched Fame." While the Fame influence is readily apparent, there are also tangible differences between the two films. "I think ours has a much more casual, off-handed dealing with issues of sexuality," points out Graff. "In Fame, they have the one gay guy, but that means he has to be in therapy and he's a miserable, sad character." He continues with a laugh, "He's so minor he's not even in the end of the movie, and they cut him out of the TV show."

Graff cast his film with a group of non-professional actors. While a tight, 22-day shooting schedule would appear to be problematic enough for a first-time director, he was adamant not to populate the film's roles with young actors who had prior television/movie experience. "The version of my movie with real showbiz, musical, theater, actor kids would be so horrifying and cutesy," he explains with a smile. "That thing that they think acting is when acting is literally the opposite of that. It seemed a much better strategy to use kids with absolutely no experience and no bad habits and educate them on how to make them work on camera." With spirited performances from his cast, which includes newcomers Daniel Letterle, Joanna Chilcoat and Robin De Jesus, that possess a charming "rough-around-the-edges" quality, the decision proves to be a wise one.

In stark contrast to the unknown cast is the list of heavy hitters that Graff lined up for key behind-the-scenes positions. Oscar-winning composer Michael Gore, Emmy-nominated choreographer Jerry Mitchell, and veteran stage and screen music supervisor Tim Weil are just a few of the folks Graff was able to bring aboard the project. Perhaps most notably, legendary composer, Stephen Sondheim, who appears in a cameo -- his first time on screen -- also basically donated three songs to the film. This decorated creative team agreed to lend their services at a considerably reduced price. What exactly was the trick? "I ask myself that every day," says Graff, still appearing genuinely perplexed by his amazing good fortune. "Hopefully, they responded to the script. The idea that it's a movie about what it is to be passionate about theater seemed to speak to them."

The resurgence of the movie musical in the past few years, thanks mainly to the success of Moulin Rouge and Chicago, seems to make this one of the more fertile periods in recent memory for a film like Camp to be released. In an effort to reach as large an audience as possible, and also to specifically target the group he's anticipating the film will affect most profoundly, Graff made sure to do whatever necessary to keep Camp away from an R-rating. "I wanted kids to be able to see the movie I was making for them. I didn't want them to have to go with somebody that they couldn't be who they are with," he states. "I think if you're seeing this movie with your dad," he continues, "and you're a 14-year-old boy who thinks he's gay, it's a very different experience." Although he accepts the generalization that the theater community seems to be an extension of the gay community, and his film deals frankly with gay characters, Graff doesn't want this to obscure the broader themes Camp tackles. "I would be thrilled if some gay kid saw this movie and thought, 'Oh, I'm not alone? How great.'" He adds, "Also, however, I think it hopefully speaks to issues of outsiderness that go beyond just being gay." Inclusive of an overweight girl whose jaw is wired shut by her parents in hopes that she will lose weight, and a young man afflicted with a pronounced case of acne, Graff's movie plainly addresses body issues and the idea of one not being comfortable in their own skin. "It would be great if there was a movie that a kid could go to and say, 'I don't look like Kirsten Dunst or Ashton Kutcher,'" notes Graff. "They're both great, but they don't have acne, they're not heavy."

Unfortunately, fans of Graff, the actor, will be disappointed to hear that he sounds more than happy to settle exclusively into the career of a writer/director. When asked about this decision, he shrugs and matter-of-factly informs, "I never really liked acting. I was happy to have done it, but it was never really my thing." The release of his filmmaking debut, courtesy of IFC Films, should prove, however, that directing is indeed Graff's thing. Produced by Danny Devito's Jersey Films and Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, and Katie Roumel's Killer Films (Boys Don't Cry, Far From Heaven), Camp is a unique, heartfelt coming-of-age film, focusing on a group of characters usually found in the margins, if at all, of most movies that center on the teenage experience. Its message should connect not only with theater aficionados, but also with many of those whose passions lie squarely outside of mainstream culture.

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